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Hakeem or Kevin McHale at low post moves?

Discussion in 'NBA Dish' started by apollo33, Aug 15, 2011.

?

Hakeem or KH at post moves

Poll closed Oct 4, 2011.
  1. The Dream, Duh

    77.3%
  2. K-Mac

    6.0%
  3. About the same

    2.7%
  4. Impossible to compare the two

    14.0%
  1. apollo33

    apollo33 Member

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    The recent barrage of players opting to workout with Hakeem prompted me to start this thread.

    I did not watch either player play at their primes. But I have downloaded a lot of Rocket games from the 90's when Hakeem was the most dominant force in the post at the time. And yes, his moves were a thing of beauty and very effective against other centers.

    I have however, not found a lot of examples of Mchale in the lowpost, at least not in a complete game form anyways.

    So the question is simple, between the two legends, who really had more low post moves and superior footwork.
     
  2. Blurr#7

    Blurr#7 Contributing Member

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    Not taking anything away from McHale but Dreams moves had moves. What Kevin didn't have was Dreams quickness and explosiveness. Dream would spin, take a dribble and literaly leave his defender planted there! Just sooo quick it was almost a joke!

    McHale was more like Duncan to me, his post moves were very fundamentally sound but he lacked the athleticism and finesse Dream had. Hakeem all day everyday by far!
     
  3. Mr. Clutch

    Mr. Clutch Contributing Member

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    I never saw McHale play live, but his highlights do look impressive.
     
  4. johnstarks

    johnstarks Member

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    Obviously Hakeem's post moves are more dominant than McHale. He combined creativity and fundamentals to amazing athleticism at his size.

    But for someone like Dwight Howard who has great athleticism for his size, but still hasn't mastered the fundamentals and has no creativity, someone like McHale might be better. McHale had solid fundamentals and Howard would do well to master them. If Howard had McHale's fundamentals on offense, he would be scary. Working with Hakeem might distract him where he may try to emulate Hakeem's creativity when he needs to get his fundamentals down first. But for someone like Kobe, working with Hakeem makes complete sense since he already has the fundamentals, athleticism, and creativity to take advantage of Hakeem's full repertoire.
     
  5. Greg M

    Greg M Member

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    The Dream Shake comes naturally and is unteachable. A difficult to block hook shot from a big man can be learned by most anybody. It's good to have McHale on board.
     
  6. rocketsjudoka

    rocketsjudoka Contributing Member
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    The Dream duh...
     
  7. blunto

    blunto Member

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    Posted this in the other thread, but here's Bill Simmons' take:
    Let me first say that when I started watching the game, Hakeem was in (or nearing) his prime, and McHale was past his. Since those days have passed, I've watched a lot more footage of Dream than I have of McHale. I'm biased, and the lines may inevitably be drawn around who has watched more of each player, simple as that. Fandom and homerism.

    That said, the impression I get is that McHale's low-post play gets over-hyped because he is/was:
    1. a Hall of Famer
    2. a Champion
    3. part of one of the greatest front lines in NBA history
    4. kind of one-dimensional offensively compared to other great scorers, therefore making it easier for him to be identified with low-post play. Sort of similar to how Dikembe gets a lot of attention as a shot-blocker, even though Hakeem blocked more shots and was a better all around defender.

    While I think it is impressive that McHale had as much success as he did with his relative lack of athleticism, it's silly to factor that out of the conversation. If you've got all the same craftiness but you add in an incredible explosiveness, then that still makes you BETTER.
     
  8. blunto

    blunto Member

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  9. weslinder

    weslinder Contributing Member

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    McHale was the great classical musician of post players. He knew every effective post move and combination, and he executed them all with precision and grace.

    Hakeem was the great jazz musician of post players. He knew most of the effective post moves, executed those with precision and grace, but then could improvise, making up a new move or countermove on the fly. I'd say that made him better. And he had greater natural talent than McHale.
     
    2 people like this.
  10. Carl Herrera

    Carl Herrera Contributing Member

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    I largely agree with Simmons: both of them are great post players but McHale has a larger variety of great post moves. Hakeem doesn't have quite the variety but what he has are well executed.

    McHale does have a higher scoring efficiency at his peak-- the 60% from the field and 80% from the line combo was just ridiculous, though part of it is playing with more talented teammates and getting easier opportunities.
     
  11. apollo33

    apollo33 Member

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    That was my take too based on watching entire games of Hakeem in his prime.

    To be hones, I think he was not the low-post player the crazy highlights made him out to honest. He had a couple of go to moves like the turnaround baseline fadaway, or jump hook to the middle that were not very fancy, but almost perfectly executed moves that scored points quick and easy. Maybe once in a while he will give you something like the Robinson bammboozled fakes, but most of the time he stuck with his bread and butter, and also scored a lot of points from offensive rebounds and mid range pull ups.

    I would assume because Mchale was no where as athletic as Hakeem, therefore, he couldn't do a lot of moves Hakeem could do easily in the post, so he had to d pull off tricks, fakes and weird pivots constantly in order to get past the defense.
     
  12. valorita

    valorita Member

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    I think I recall Yao saying that working with Hakeem to learn his moves is kind of useless for him because physically, he did not have the speed or agility to emulate Dream's moves.
    The greatest attribute of Hakeem was that he was a big that had the quickness and grace of a guard. That is why Kobe benefited from working with him more than Dwight did.

    McHale is naturally the better teacher for our bigs because none of them are capable of perfecting Hakeem's.
     
  13. Damion Laverne

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    The Dream was much more fluid, but the Slippery Eel was great in his own right.
     
  14. Carl Herrera

    Carl Herrera Contributing Member

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    Cleverly disguised racial post. :)
     
  15. v3.0

    v3.0 Contributing Member

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    McHale had to rely on more dips and fakes because he couldn't overpower most of his defenders. Hakeem had more signature moves that he used for his bread and butter to score, plus was quicker and more athletic than most of his defenders, so he can either choose his bread and butter moves to score, outquick them, or improvise.

    A McHale highlight vid:

    <iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/dlSZC4TAYVc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
     
  16. blunto

    blunto Member

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    Hakeem Olajuwon vs Kevin McHale 1986 NBA Finals

     
  17. Xerobull

    Xerobull You son of a b!tch! I'm in!

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    "Hakeem Olajuwon is a son of a b****!"
    "Hakeem Olajuwon is the father of every kid in this town!"
    "Hakeem Olajuwon once showed me a video of him making love to my wife, and it was the most beautiful thing I ever saw!"
    "One time I was with Dream in the back of a pickup truck, along with a live deer. Dream goes up to the deer and says, 'I'm Hakeem Olajuwon! SAY IT!' Then he manipulates the deer's lips in such a way as to make it say, 'HakeemOlajuwon'... It wasn't exactly like it, but it was pretty good for a deer!'"
    "He'd eat a homeless person if you dared him!"
    "His poop is used as currency in Argentina."
    "He sweats Gatorade"
    "He once breast fed a flamingo back to health."
    "He hated Mexicans! And he was half Mexican! .......And he hated irony!"
    "I once saw him scissor kick Angela Landsbury."
    "He sheds his skin once a year."
    "He did 3 tours in 'Nam...... I was in Corpus Christi on business a month ago. I had this eight foot tall Asian waiter, which made me curious. I asked him his name. Sure enough it's Ho Tran Dream!"
    "I once saw him eat a whole live chicken."
    "His favorite movie is 'One on One' with Robby Benson."
    "He sleeps eight hours a night! ........ well, he was pretty normal when it came to that."
    "Hakeem Olajuwon was a two ton man-mountain who could palm a medicine ball!"
    "Did I ever tell you about the time Dream took me out to go get a drink with him? We go off looking for a bar and we can't find one. Finally Dream takes me to a vacant lot and says, 'Here we are.' We sat there for a year and a half and, sure enough, someone constructs a bar around us. The day they opened we ordered a shot, drank it, and then burned the place to the ground. Dream yelled over the roar of the flames, 'Always leave things the way you found 'em!'"
    "Hakeem Olajuwon had a four day heart attack...a day for each chamber. At the autopsy, they said his heart looked like a basketball filled with ricotta cheese."
    "He once punched a hole in a cow just to see who was coming up the road."
    "He taught me how to make love to a woman, and how to scold a child."
    "The story of Johnny Appleseed is based on Dream... except for the part about planting apple trees... and not raping men."
    "He drives an ice cream truck covered in human skulls."
    "Did I ever tell you about the time Dream went hunting? Dream decides he's going to hunt down all four of the Banana Splits. He stalks and kills every one of them with a machete. They all begged for their lives...except Fleegle."
    "Dream's family crest is a picture of a barracuda eating Neil Armstrong."
    "Dream named the group Sha Na Na. They did not want to be called that."
    "He wears a live rattlesnake as a condom."
    "They say he bleeds peppermint vodka."
    "The movie Deliverance was based on Dream's experiences as a kindergarden teacher."
    "He took The Blair Witch to his senior prom."
    "He uses live elk for toilet paper."
     
  18. Prince

    Prince Member

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    Hakeem is the greatest low post player of all times. Duh!
     
  19. dropshot001

    dropshot001 Member

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    hakeem's moves were faster, more fluid and more explosive than mchale's
     
  20. Ziggy

    Ziggy QUEEN ANON

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    McHale was about gimmicks and being crafty. Hakeem... you can't teach that. I can do a Dream Shake but guess what -- it'd be 4X slower, 5X less athletic and 500X less effective.
     

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